


Connie Swap Episode 26: Space Race

by br42, BurdenKing, MjStudioArts



Series: Connie Swap [26]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Anxiety, Art, Deaf, Deaf Character, Drama, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Momswap, Pictures, Platonic Romance, Slice of Life, Steven Universe AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-03 22:56:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15828624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42, https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurdenKing/pseuds/BurdenKing, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MjStudioArts/pseuds/MjStudioArts
Summary: Pearl and Amethyst have finished their spaceship and will be lifting off soon, headed for Homeworld. Connie goes to say her final farewell to the pair and wish them a safe voyage. A bittersweet visit for all before the blast off.





	1. Such Sweet Sorrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new Power Testing omake went up the same day as this chapter, but the omake is set between the end of Episode 25 and the start of Episode 26. As such, you might want to consider reading the following omake first to follow along in chronological order.
> 
> [Power Testing: Shapeshifting](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/36697143) by [br42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42) \- "Peridot, Connie, and Steven are determined to figure out what Connie can, can't, and shouldn't do regarding her newfound shapeshifting power. Jasper, Lapis, and Bismuth are along to help out and watch the show." **This fic is 100% canon.**

Connie tightened the straps on her pack and made sure the saber on her hip was in place.

"Off to go chill with Pinkie?" asked Lapis, the blue gem sitting on the part of the couch that wrapped around the coffee table. Opposite her was Jasper in her usual spot at the far end. Each had playing cards in their hands and were studying them intently, making Connie wonder just how Lapis had known she was about to head out.

"No, school is back in session so Steven's busy," said Connie, unable to suppress a slight frown. She'd really gotten used to her friend being freely available during the week. "He says his birthday is usually on one of the last days of summer vacation."

Jasper laid down a card and drew one off the deck. Her poker face was impeccable.

In contrast, Lapis snapped up the discarded card with an excited grab, giggling as she rearranged her cards. She put a card down on the table with a cry of 'Boom!' Without sparing a glance back she said to Connie, "Well, then just turn into a cat and go lay in his lap. You know _he's_ not going to shoo you away."

Shortly after Steven's birthday, Peridot had proclaimed her equipment ready for the task of testing Connie's new-found shapeshifting ability. Two days had been spent with Connie learning what she could and couldn't (and shouldn't) do, all while Peridot recorded _everything_ with a bewildering array of sensors. Bismuth had left afterwards to resume her 'me time' on a post-war Earth, and Wolf had tagged along to take in the sights and smells and head scratches. Peridot was even now in her workshop, going over the data with a fervor Connie had rarely seen before.

Which was odd since all the gems she knew could shapeshift.

Regardless, of the few forms Connie could reliably take, the easiest was also her first: a cat. For one very brief moment she considered doing as Lapis suggested; she knew from personal experience that Steven's lap was ideal for cat naps. Then she recalled what she had actually been getting ready to do. Her eyes widened a little in remembrance.

"Yeah, no," she drawled. "It'd probably be distracting for Steven and besides, I haven't figured out how to change back by myself."

The smirk was audible in Lapis' voice- "Well, if Stevie won't get you wet then- OW!" -until Jasper transferred her cards to one hand and cuffed Lapis with the other. "Hey, you don't even know what I'm talking about, you overstuffed oompa loompa!" protested the blue gem.

To be honest, neither did Connie, but she didn't say that.

"Peridot said to do that when you were using that tone of voice to talk about cat-Connie and Steven." Jasper calmly drew another card, then added one to the pile.

Connie took this as her cue to leave. "Anyway, I'm going out for a hike. I'll do my own thing for lunch --let Peridot know if she ever comes out of her room-- but I’ll be home for dinner and Steven might be joining us as well. We’re still on for the Warriors of Literacy this evening, right?”

Jasper nodded in confirmation, the large Quartz being the other member of their book club. Since they were nearing the end of the fantasy series they'd been reading for a while, the large-and-literate Quartz had grown especially keen. Connie made a mental note to think of what they should read next.

"Don't do anything I would do~" singsonged Lapis.

"Yeah, don't," agreed Jasper. She then spread her cards across the table. "Gin."

As the screen door behind Connie closed she heard a cry of "Gin?! I wanna check that sleeve of yours! What are you hiding… besides the obvious?" from Lapis.

The girl took the steps down two at a time. Her first destination was Fish Stew Pizza, where Jenny had agreed to give her a ride out to the edge of town, where road work signs had the approach to the Universe family barn closed off.

The Pizza twin was always eager to help a friend, especially when said help allowed her to avoid working all of her shift at the family business.

From there Connie would walk to the barn, taking the convoluted route that would keep her from setting off any alarms for the two rogue gems working and living within.

Today was the day Amethyst and Pearl were leaving Earth. The spaceship was complete. Connie was going to say goodbye.

* * *

“Whoa…”

Connie craned her neck up to take in the view of the ship. It had a rounded, bulb-shaped body, like an incandescent light bulb: the narrow part you’d screw in was where the main thruster lived while the the wide part was the front. A cockpit encased with bands of metal and bluish glass jutted out from the top, a little ways back from the nose of the craft. The wings, formerly attached to the airplane that lived in the Universe family barn, extended out from the sides, each supporting four smaller thrusters. A large ramjet was bolted to the fuselage, set a little ways behind the cockpit, a large and unwieldy component like a missile strapped to the roof of a car.

The body of the craft was made of metal panels of varying sizes, all riveted or welded into place. That combined with the places where salvaged gemtech was visible through the ribs of the ship gave the whole thing a very Frankenstein-like appearance, as though someone had tried to make an elegant vessel out of mismatched parts… which was exactly what they’d done. Very appropriate for a joint project between Amethyst and Pearl, Connie thought.

The whole thing had been raised up, the nose pointed skyward, supported in place by a webwork of recently-assembled scaffolding. The air had that astringent smell Connie knew meant welding had taken place not long ago. The lighting was the curious dimness that came from being surrounded by holographic screens shrouding the ad hoc launch site from prying eyes, but the silver, gray, iridescent, and rust-colored panels, some shiny, others matte, caught the sunlight and gleamed nonetheless.

It was a mixture of proud and desperate that Connie felt landed squarely in the area of _‘defiant.’_ Pearl and Amethyst were going home to Homeworld and that was all there was to it.

“Pretty cool, non?” asked Amethyst, her grin audible in her voice. The purple gem was sitting on a scaffold about two-thirds of the way up, kicking her short feet over the side, clearly filled with pre-launch excitement.

“I’ll say,” breathed Connie, shielding her eyes as she scanned up and down the length of the ship. Having seen the inside of Steven’s family’s barn, as well as the interior of one of Amethyst’s caves, it was hard for Connie to imagine that an interstellar spaceship existed in them, even _in potentia._ “How’s it work?”

“I can give you a brief overview if you’d like, Connie?”

If Connie weren't so overawed by the whole thing she might have jumped in surprise at Pearl walking soundlessly up behind her. The gem had greeted Connie when she'd arrived and then disappeared back inside the barn, radiating business. She’d come back with a prim expression and a chalkboard being wheeled out by a holo-pearl.

Connie smiled at the gem and nodded.

First Pearl summoned an additional holo-pearl and sent both off to find appropriate seating for Connie and Amethyst, the latter gem hopping down from the scaffolding with a ‘weee!’ and making what Steven called a superhero landing. While a battered recliner and a scuffed wooden chair were brought out, Pearl pulled a stick of chalk from her gemstone and set about drawing on the board. Her art was neat and she didn’t once squeak the chalk, a hazard when Peridot was lecturing and her limb enhancers were due for a recalibration.

Then, using a stick as a pointer, Pearl began to go over the details in her lyrical voice.

* * *

“-then we’ll make our return.”

Connie stared at the board willing herself to understand the rocketry equations and arched trajectories… and largely failing. It turns out rocket science was complicated, even before you added in the vagaries of three different forms of propulsion, one of which could take you faster than light.

Amethyst had decided the butterfly that flitted past mid-lecture was a more worthwhile subject of study and had ultimately found herself back up the scaffolding, becoming a literal purple monkey at one point.

Pearl set the stick aside and faced Connie, seeming to divine her confusion despite Connie’s efforts to hide it. “Perhaps seeing it up close will help. Would you enjoy that?”

Connie eyed the scaffolding with a measure of uncertainty before nodding her head. Pearl had shown herself to be aggressively competent throughout this whole enterprise so her welding was (probably) sound. Following the pale gem along, the two traveled the wood-and-metal catwalks that festooned the scaffolding.

"The primary chemical thruster at the tail will be our main source of Newtonian acceleration, both in and out of the Earth's atmosphere." Pearl motioned as she spoke, her eyes bright.

There was a faint, reddish glow visible between the ribs of the ship's underside, like a piece of metal heated in a fire. Despite this, Connie felt only the warmth of the sun upon her. "This contains the drive dear Amethyst salvaged from the submerged wreck-" Overhead Amethyst blew a loud, wet kiss and chuckled. "-Which will enable us to attain faster-than-light speeds after we have reached sufficient elevation. The technology was not one that existed when I was last on Homeworld, but I was able to interface with the software to pull up the diagnostics and work backwards from there."

Connie had fallen into student-mode some time ago, a kind of mental centering where she let unfamiliar concepts wash over her so that her mind, sponge-like, could absorb details. A decade under Peridot's tutelage meant she was good at it, which was why her brain was able to sift out and elevate the following: "You can interface with gemtech?!"

Pearl gave a modest bow of acknowledgement. Opening a small maintenance panel, red light spilling out and bathing gem and Connie both, Pearl reached in with one slight hand and pressed her palm against the drive within. Then her eyes went wide and a storm of lines and sigils streamed across them, as though Lapis' mirror-eyes were reflecting the contents of Peridot's visor. A second later Pearl jolted and removed her hand, looking momentarily disoriented. Recomposing herself she made another modest bow and said, "All drive systems nominal."

 _Wow. Holograms, holographic assistants, sand-manipulation, storage,_ and _connecting to gemtech? Pearls have_ so many _powers._

The pair climbed steadily higher, the tour continuing. "The wings are fixed in position; I would have liked to have them fold inward during spaceflight but that proved too great a technical complication for my humble abilities." Before Connie could object that _nothing_ about the _interstellar spaceship_ they were climbing pointed to humble abilities, Pearl spoke again. "Below each are four secondary chemical thrusters. These will be primarily for maneuvering, though they will be fired during launch to aid in our ascent." The pair ducked under a wing and climbed still further up the scaffold.

When they reached Amethyst the gem took Pearl's hand and blew a raspberry into it, prompting a teal blush to shade Pearl's cheeks. This made Amethyst laugh and shoot Connie a very Lapis-like wink before shapeshifting into a purple squirrel so gem and girl could walk past without being crowded.

By the time the bluish blush had faded they reached... _Is that a traffic light?_ Set into the side of the ship was a trio of lights --green, yellow, and red--- framed in a rectangle of yellow-painted metal. The red light was glowing, letting any motorists who happened to be driving up in the air know not to go yet. When Connie had been looking at the ship from the ground, this must have been obscured by a wing.

"This external status indicator will be used to signal us when the ship is ready to launch, as well as providing exterior lighting while in transit." Pearl leaned in close and whispered to Connie, "This was Amethyst's favorite addition to the design."

Traveling the upward spiral of catwalks a little further they finally reached the cockpit itself, Pearl lifting a hinged section of bluish glass up and inviting Connie in with a gesture.

With the ship pointing skyward, everything was oriented sideways relative to Connie, which only served to make the space all the more bewildering. There was a control panel, because the dizzying array of knobs, dials, and displays could be nothing else, including a full eighty-eight key electronic keyboard. Even being used to Peridot's hodge-podge devices, Connie found that strange.

The air was filled with humming from at least three different sources and frequencies. It should have been discordant, but it was as if they'd been tuned to harmonize instead. Given Pearl's curious attention to detail, it was within the realm of possibility that that had been deliberate.

There were metal tool boxes welded to the deck, labeled in the gem language, English, and French, with phrases like, 'Hull Repair,' 'Diagnostic Equipment,' and 'Snacks.' A glance in the back showed still more boxes affixed to the deck, though Connie didn't catch the labels.

Behind the, um, keyboard was a pilot's seat, a battered recliner criss-crossed with seat belts. And behind that were-

"Hey Pearl? Why are there three seats in your spaceship?"

Pearl, who had been wearing an aura of self-satisfaction during the whole tour, suddenly looked very humble. She stood very primly and stared at Connie's feet, saying in a small voice, "I had hoped-" Her head lowered slightly. "It was this Pearl's wish that-" Slowly she raised her eyes to meet, if not Connie's eyes than at least her chin. "Would you like to come with me, Connie?"

"WHAT?!"

Connie lurched sideways and for a split second she feared the ship was toppling. It took her another second to realize that the exclamation of surprise hadn't come from her throat, but was rather bellowed by the purple gem sitting just outside the cockpit opening.

"I knew it! As soon as Citrine showed up in her stupid boat I saw how you-" The short Quartz was frantic, with anger, pleading, and betrayal crossing her face in rapid progression. A large tear began to pool at the corner of her visible eye.

Pearl swiveled hastily about and bowed almost completely to the floor. Or, given the cockpit’s orientation, the back wall. "Dear Amethyst, please forgive this servant's misstatement. You were always accompanying me to Homeworld. I wished only to extend an invitation to Connie in case she wished to join us."

There was a pregnant pause, silent save for the harmonizing hum of the surrounding craft.

"Vraiment?" asked the purple gem -- _"Really?"_ Connie mentally translated--, followed by a loud sniff. "You're not going to ditch me for Citrine?"

Pearl emerged from her bow and stepped close to Amethyst. She raised a hand up to her gemstone and withdrew a handkerchief, which she used to gingerly dab Amethyst's tears away. "No dear Amethyst. Whatever Connie decides, I will not depart without you."

A final sniff and then Amethyst nodded, a half-smile crossing her face. "Good. We're a pack now so no leaving anyone behind." Pearl half-nodded, half-bowed in agreement.

Then three eyes, four if Amethyst could see through her hair, looked at Connie.

"Oh. Um-" She was about to rest her hand on something for support, then thought better of it in case it accidentally set off the launch sequence or fired the ejector seats or something. "That is-" Connie cast about, her mind suddenly blank and her tongue clumsy. "Can this ship even support a half-human like me? Will it have, you know, air and pressure and, uh, heat?"

A corner of her wanted to ask where the bathroom was, but that didn't rank among things like breathing and not freezing to death.

"The ship is sealed and should maintain both pressure and atmosphere. Waste heat from the mechanisms below should keep the interior an acceptable temperature, though you may wish to dress in layers to be safe. And if something does go wrong, mechanisms are in place to return us to Earth as soon and as safely as possible. Finally, should something render the cockpit unsafe for you, a final contingency would be for me to store you in my my gemstone until such time as it is safe for you to exit. I am presently storing provisions, attire, and breathing apparatuses should they be needed within or without." 

Connie’s eyebrows jumped up and she stared at the gemstone set in Pearl’s forehead. “Does- Would that work? Can you store an organic being in there safely?” Connie’s threshold for weird was pretty high but _this_ idea hurtled right across the line with momentum to spare.

Pearl drew herself into a formal pose, her equivalent to a nervous cough. “I have tested it successfully with organics Amethyst acquired for that purpose.”

“Squirrels,” clarified the compact Quartz with an easy smile.

“In cages,” Pearl was quick to add, “following an initial… troublesome first experiment. Though all were retrieved and released unharmed.”

“I got to go in and help catch the first one,” boasted Amethyst. “It was fun!”

Connie’s imagination blew a fuse and she could only blink at the pair for a moment. Then her mind rallied enough for her to recognize something, something that was staring her in the face… literally.

“You put a lot of thought into this, didn’t you?” she asked, looking at Pearl.

Pearl's hands were clasped tightly in front of her. "'The hero may one day release the companion from their geas. The companion may one day show the hero the wonders of the wider world,'" she said softly, quoting from _the story,_ their story. She gave a weak smile. "I have thought of a moment much like this a great many times indeed.”

Then she pulled a face and added, “The squirrels were something of an unpleasant surprise though.”

Connie’s mouth was too dry for her to properly laugh at that. She licked her lips but it didn’t seem to help. Something with the air in the cockpit? The summer heat? No, probably that thing where she was being asked to leave the planet on a one-way trip across the galaxy.

Yeah, that seemed the likely culprit.

Before she was even conscious of meaning to do it, she found herself shaking her head. It was a beautiful dream but she couldn't just _leave_. This was her home: her family, her friends, her destiny, all were firmly rooted here in Beach City and, more broadly, the Earth.

Plus, that one corner of her was openly skeptical of Homeworld's bathroom situation.

"I'm sorry, Pearl, Amethyst. It's very kind of you to offer, and I'm going to miss you both terribly-" The faint hitch in her voice lent weight to her words; for weeks now she'd gotten a little choked up whenever she’d contemplated the fact of their eminent, likely-permanent departure. "-But the Earth is my home and I can't leave it. I have so much to do, so many people who I need and who need me." She gave another head shake and found her eyes a little misty all of the sudden. “But I really hope you both find everything you’re looking for on Homeworld.”

Amethyst’s arm flashed white and then stretched out to probably four times its normal length so she could pat Connie on the shoulder without getting up from her perch on the lip of the cockpit. Pearl, meanwhile, gave a modest bow, more to hide the disappointment on her face than out of any sense of respect or formality.

Rising, faint moisture present at the corners of her eyes, Pearl said, “If the two of you will wait on the ground, I will begin the pre-launch initiation sequence. Once initiated, the process requires some time to complete so it is best I begin it now. I-” there was a sniff and Pearl suddenly found a display opposite Connie very important. “I will join you both below momentarily.”

As Connie and Amethyst made their way down from the scaffolding, the rising thrum of machinery coming online almost drowned out the quiet crying coming from the open cockpit.

* * *

Neither Connie nor Amethyst said anything for a while after they reached the bottom. The ship, meanwhile, was coming to life, the red traffic light fading out as the yellow light flickered on. It was noisy but not overly so, though Connie suspect it would be _much_ louder when that green light came on.

“You said you would help my pack get better. That still going to happen?” 

Connie had been so engrossed watching the spaceship it took her a second to tear her eyes away and mentally replay what she’d heard. Amethyst was giving her a stare that wasn’t hostile but was _appraising_.

Connie nodded. “It is. I will. I- I don’t really know how right now, how to make corrupted gems better, but I’m going to figure out.” She stared off into the middle distance a little and said in a quieter voice, “Somehow.”

Amethyst nodded. “Good, but I want them taken care of first. There’s a lot of gems like them out there, but those aren’t my pack. You didn’t promise anyone you’d fix those others first so I want you to do that for me.” She blinked (winked?). “You didn’t, did you?”

Connie shook her head. “No. Actually, you were the first new gem I ever met who wasn’t a monster or trapped in an object.”

A thought, a horrifying and _obvious_ thought rocketed through Connie’s mind so hard it almost caused her to stagger. Mentally she gave herself the mother of all facepalms. Did she _really_ know that the ice castle gem was corrupted? What about the dozens or hundreds of other embedded gems bubbled in the burning room? The Crystal Gems couldn’t have been more wrong about Pearl after all. Why it had taken her this long to think of that being...

“-ome back, but if I do, I want to see them better, or know that you tried.”

Once more dragging herself to the present, Connie forced herself to pay attention to Amethyst. She’d missed some of what had been said but she gave a nod and that seemed to satisfy the Quartz.

More ship components came online, the background noise growing incrementally as they did. Amethyst, meanwhile, was staring at the dirt, in thought.

A few more seconds passed in silence, Connie mentally upbraiding herself for failing to catch the obvious, what should have been her first thought after meeting Pearl out of her book in July. Then Amethyst said, “You can have my stuff,” a statement which she immediately amended to, “ _Some_ of my stuff. I do want to come back eventually but while I’m gone...” She looked away, arms crossed. “Just try not to mess up the piles more than you have to, okay Citrine?”

A corner of Connie’s mind was skeptical of what she’d want with centuries of pilfered camping supplies. Another corner of her pointed out the _spaceship_ that had been built in-part from those same piles of stuff, and the objection was meekly withdrawn. 

Besides, a bridge mended before a departure like this was a darn good going-away present. “Thank you, Amethyst. I’ll be careful with them,” she answered with gratitude, if not, perhaps, for the reason the gem expected.

By this point Pearl walked over, the pale gem’s soft footfalls completely lost in the background thrum of the awakening craft. She wore a grin pointed in Amethyst’s direction even if her eyes were somber. “That’s very generous of you, dear Amethyst. I too have something for Connie before we depart.”

With a beckoning gesture to the shadowy interior of the barn, a holo-pearl emerged carrying something rectangular and about the dimensions of a cake. It was wrapped in cloth, so that probably ruled out it being an actual cake, which was just as well given the gem’s culinary inexperience: during Connie’s previous visit Pearl had come close to making her tea brewed from oak leaves.

Bending stiffly down, the holographic construct handed the parcel to Connie. “One. Ticket. Please enjoy the. Show,” it said in a high-pitched monotone. Pearl dismissed it with a flash of her gemstone.

Connie was surprised by the weight of it, holding it in both arms. Sitting back in the chair from the earlier rocketry lecture, she ran a hand over the fabric. It was smooth and the same, pristine shade of white as Pearl. Silk perhaps? Gently pulling the cloth sleeve down Connie saw a thick, hardbound book. It was actually about the same size as the one Pearl had been embedded in, though it obviously lacked a gemstone in the cover. Written across the spine in flowing script was, _The Tale of the Hero and the Companion_.

A noise of surprise tried to escape Connie but found her throat tight for some reason; she was literally choked up.

For more than a year of her life, that book and the story therein had been her most constant companions. She’d later found out the tale had been Pearl reaching out to Connie, comforting her, connecting with her, the two finding solace in one-another’s presence. Connie had summoned her sword because of that story, the very thing that had propelled her out of the doldrum of her old life and into a new one of adventure and destiny.

She opened the book reverently and found page after page of neatly printed prose: the entire tale, word-for-word, exactly as she remembered it. A corner of Connie’s very literate soul sang out in a paean of happiness, the girl finding it hard to describe the feeling of just how profoundly _right_ it felt to be holding this book and looking at these words.

Connie opened her mouth to speak but found it hard to form words. “How did you make this?” she eventually managed to say. The idea of Pearl and Amethyst somehow contracting a publisher, or sneaking in and making a printing of their own, seemed even more far-fetched than them building a starship on the sly.

Pearl’s smile was gentle and her expression, tenderness itself. “I wrote it.”

Connie made that surprised choking noise again. “You _wrote_ it?!”

“Yes. When I could spare time away from my other duties I transcribed the story. It was so you’d have something to remember me by if you were unable, or unwilling, to accompany Amethyst and me on our journey.”

Objections sprang to mind: exclamations of disbelief about someone remembering the entire hundreds-of-pages-long story, of someone writing the whole thing out by hand, of finding the time while also _constructing a faster-than-light vehicle out of scrap_. But after it became clear there was no way her mouth was large enough to fit even a fraction of that, Connie oh-so-gently closed the book, set it reverently aside, and then sprang at Pearl, arms outstretched.

If Connie only ever gave one hug in her life, this would be the one. A hug for the ages. Connie’s hug-apotheosis. One hug to rule them all.

The rest of her visit happened, but none of that mattered any more than a candle does held up to the sun. As Connie walked away from the barn, a comforting weight now resting inside her backpack, she felt that hug still, and wondered if she always would. She was mildly worried because she had to go home and pretend like nothing spaceship-related had happened, which was going to be hard when she was this emotionally drunk. Maybe she’d ask Jenny to take the long way home.

Jenny certainly wouldn’t mind.

* * *

It was early afternoon when Connie returned home, the whole visit taking only a couple hours instead of the timeless eternity it had felt like.

Lapis was nodding off in her window seat, a magazine open across her lap and going mostly unread. Jasper didn’t return home from a patrol for another hour, and when she did she greeted Connie with a nod and then buried herself in the _Lutes and Loot_ Monster Manual she’d borrowed off of Steven. Peridot, presumably, was still ensconced in her room.

Which meant Connie had plenty of time to carefully shelve _THE_ book and then lie in her bed waiting for the tumultuous sea of her emotions to settle.

She must have been on the edge of a nap herself because she was jolted into wakefulness so suddenly it felt almost violent.

Peridot bolted out of the temple door (“Stars!”) and ran straight for the bathroom while her primary limb enhancer was emitting a ‘woop-woop’ warning klaxon.

Lapis thrashed in surprise and fell completely off her seat. Jasper marked her place in the bestiary and rose to her feet.

There was a sound of running water followed by the bathroom door flying open with a bang. "Significant events are transpiring!(‘woop-woop’) Quick, everyone gather around!(‘woop-woop’)" exclaimed Peridot, a cloud of holographic displays hovered around her head. Connie had no idea what they depicted, but the sheer number of flashing red icons meant it wasn’t good.

As the last vestiges of sleep and lingering emotional satisfaction burned away, Connie felt a cold apprehension start to fill the void.

“The heck is it, Dot?” asked Lapis, a look of concern fighting the scowl for room on the blue gem’s face.

“I honestly (‘woop-woop’) have no idea what these (‘woop-woop’) readings mean,” explained Peridot, eyes darting from display to display.

Jasper was impassive. “Corrupted gem?”

Peridot shook her head. “No (‘woop-woop’).” She paused, “Or I sincerely (‘woop-woop’) hope not. These readings are (‘woop-woop’) GAH!” and she hastily silenced the alarm. “As I was saying, these readings show a number of spikes of electromagnetic force, non-baryonic matter generation, and bursts of exotic particles human science doesn’t even have terms to describe.”

“Someone microwaving with the door open?” drawled Lapis.

Peridot scoffed. “Hardly. This is an energetic cascade on-”

“English,” interrupted Lapis.

Peridot rolled her eyes and tried again. “When reactant mass is bombarded by-”

“English!” demanded the blue gem.

Peridot dragged a hand across her face and then said in a raised voice, “This is the gemtech equivalent of firing up a lawnmower that has been converted into a muscle car, with no muffler and all the exhaust is being routed through a train whistle. This is so inconceivably noisy to my sensor array, I would be hard-pressed to engineer something comparable.” Another shake of the head. “In a perverse way, it’s impressive.”

“Where?”

Jasper was already halfway to the warp pad as she said it and Peridot had to jog to keep up. “Just outside the city limits, in fact. There should be a warp pad nearby.”

Connie’s insides twisted into a knot and her body felt like something she was puppeting remotely. After three tries she still hadn’t managed to buckle on her saber.

Lapis hurried over and helped her get ready. “Alright then,” she said, propelling the girl towards the warp crystal and the others. “Let’s get out there and avenge my nap.” She cracked her knuckles as the beam enveloped them. “With extreme prejudice.”

Peridot and Jasper stared at her. Connie stared at nothing. “What?” balked the blue gem. “It was a good nap!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The promo and in-chapter art were drawn by MJStudioArts and BurdenKing.
> 
> And because I like this sort of thing, here's an in-progress pic of the promo art MJ was working on. We discussed several different options for the promo but settled on a certain poster which worked on a number of levels.  
> 
> 
> See you Wednesday, September 5th for the next exciting installment of _Space Race!_
> 
> New omake to point out:  
> *) [Power Testing: Shapeshifting](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/36697143) by [br42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42) \- "Peridot, Connie, and Steven are determined to figure out what Connie can, can't, and shouldn't do regarding her newfound shapeshifting power. Jasper, Lapis, and Bismuth are along to help out and watch the show." **This fic is 100% canon.**
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.
> 
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	2. Fight or Flight

“Let’s get out there and avenge my nap.” Lapis cracked her knuckles as the beam enveloped them. “With extreme prejudice.”

Peridot and Jasper stared at her. Connie stared at nothing. “What?” balked the blue gem. “It was a good nap!”

The beam faded away and the four of them were staring at... the Beach House.

Connie blinked, numb at recent events but pretty sure this wasn't what was supposed to happen.

"Peridot?" asked Jasper, one word voicing everyone's thought aloud.

Meanwhile, the green gem's seven remaining artificial fingers were flying as holograms were called up and logs checked. "Coterminous obstruction error?!" she squawked.

Lapis looked about to say something snarky when Jasper growled out, "The warp pad's blocked."

"Precisely. Lapis, ferry Jasper to the vicinity as quick as you can, but don't approach. We have no idea what is causing these readings, or this obstruction, and Jasper is the least likely to be injured in her approach."

“Yeah, yeah, ‘Lapis is too pretty to risk, let Jasper go in instead.’ I know the drill, P-pod,” said the blue gem in a lilting voice. A beat later and she was winging her way towards the front door.

Jasper scowled slightly but didn't actually object, and was only a pace behind her. The two vanished into the sky a moment later.

Connie and Peridot stepped off the pad and waited for someone to return with news, by warp or flight.

Slowly, in the silence of the Beach House, Connie's thoughts formed. She licked her lips. "Ma'am. Do you think maybe, if this is some kind of 'gemtech gone crazy' situation, that we should just stay away until it quiets down?"

Within Connie HQ things were in chaos. Some corners wanted to race ahead to warn Pearl and Amethyst that the rocket might be about to explode. Others wanted to go hide somewhere remote, maybe Peridot's garden, and just shell pecans until everything was over and no hard stares and harder questions were likely to be directed her way. A very overruled minority, sounding a lot like Steven, actually, said that it'd be okay because maybe everyone will just talk it out.

Peridot gave her a gentle smile as she shook her head. "It's prudent for you to suggest caution, and if my sensors indicated anything inimical to organic or gemetic life, I would have suggested Lapis instead wash the whole region into the sea to reduce the risk of surface contamination-" Connie's eyes bulged a little and the girl had to swallow. "-But the main consequence of... whatever this is is a surge in electromagnetic field generation. A problem for unshielded electronics, certainly, but harmless to the likes of us." The gem's expression soured. "Though what the root cause could be has me-"

The front door slammed open a split-second before the warp pad flashed.

"I dropped off OJ. Looked like a big pile of- Oh, wow, Tigger works fast," // "Pile of rocks on the pad. Cleared. Strange noise from nearby human building. No sign of hostiles," said Lapis and Jasper over one another. There were a few errant stones scattered around the large Quartz' feet to underscore the point.

At speed, Lapis winged over and the four of them piled onto the pad once more. They vanished in a flash of light and emerged in the sunlit expanse near the Universe family barn, an odd thrumming sound carrying on the air.

Connie felt chilled despite the August heat.

Scattered over a wide area, like a wall torn through by a wrecking ball, were rocks of assorted sizes. Connie hadn't seen them on the warp pad that morning, but then she'd arrived via pizzamobile and had been too focused on her visit to wonder about the nearby pad.

Whatever the case, Jasper hadn't wasted time with being tidy.

Peridot waved her primary limb enhancer around, staring intently at the readings as she did. It reminded Connie of a Starfleet ensign with a tricorder at about the time the away mission turned strange. A beat later the enhancer dinged, pointed as it was at the space in front of the barn. If you didn't know about the holographic screen, and ignored the omnipresent thrum, you wouldn't think anything was out of the ordinary.

"That's definitely the source of the anomalous readings," said Peridot, her voice rising with skepticism as she said it.

"Isn't that Stevie's barn?" Nods. "What, did Papaverse find an old light cannon at a yard sale and put it in storage?" Lapis' voice was thick with sarcasm.

Jasper, meanwhile, was already approaching the site. Connie noted with a detached sense of dread --as though she were back at Buck Dewey's media room watching a movie instead of this happening right in front of her-- as Jasper strode through the outermost tripwire. Was it her imagination or did a new note of urgency enter the noise at the hidden launch site?

Peridot kept looking at the seemingly empty space in front of the barn and then at her readings, confusion writ across her face. Meanwhile, Jasper advanced a few more paces when there was a dull 'whump' and the Quartz was splattered with mud from a nearby ditch.

"This doesn't make sense," murmured the technician, squinting at her display.

"Yeah, I mean, I was hoping that Jasper would get splatted by something but I didn't actually think it would happen," quipped Lapis. "Is that cascade-whatzit you mentioned granting wishes?" She seemed to concentrate for a second. "Nope, no banana," she said with a sigh.

"Not that. I mean that I'm picking up a clear signature of something large and reactive right ahead, but I'm unable to see- Hold on, why is that dwelling enshrouded in a soft-light projection?"

Jasper, meanwhile, tromped forward, unphased by the muddy shellacking she'd received, earning herself two more as she went. Lapis snorted after each one.

Just as the perfect, if muddy, Quartz was about to reach the edge of the holographic screen, Peridot did something on her primary limb enhancer that made the illusion flicker and then vanish entirely.

Jasper instantly fell into a defensive stance.

"Awhaaa-" Lapis' mouth hung open.

"Ah, that would be why," chirped Peridot, apparently satisfied with her readings. "There was a holographic veil."

Even shrouded in a thick cloud, the silhouette of the spaceship was unmistakable. There was a muted, yellow glow visible around where Connie thought the traffic light would be.

Lapis, jaw still dropped, reached over and tilted Peridot's face so her eyes were no longer on her display.

"WHAT IN THE EMPTY SKY IS THAT?!"

For a long second no one moved. Then Jasper barked, "Gems. Form up." 

It was the voice that, through years of drilling, could elicit a call to action in Connie that was more instinct than conscious thought. It had gotten her out of the Beach House before the Centipeetle Matriarch had crashed up through the floor, prompted her to act when she'd been frozen on the crumbling Lunar Sea Spire, and helped her pull through the clash with the giant Ruby fusion monster.

So it was that Connie found herself a dozen paces forward despite having _no idea_ what she should actually do. A beat later Lapis swept her up and winged the two of them to within a few feet of the commanding Quartz. The blue gem unclipped the silver cylinder from her hip and, with a quick motion, made it extend out and take shape, Lapis armed with her mallet once more.

Peridot was torn between continuing her scans and helicoptering over, unable to do both now that she only had one fully capable limb enhancer. After the first mud explosion, though, her floating fingers whirred up to speed and flew her over the field while the tethered pair did their best to squeegee off the layer of brown.

"Intel?" asked Jasper once they were all near the edge of the fog.

Still removing bits of mud, Peridot peered at her displays and said, "A missile, perhaps? A probe of some sort? It's clearly intended for flight, though it's so energetic and _strangely_ built that I'm having a hard time discerning more." In a grumbly voice she added, "A clearer view of the exterior would facilitate my assessment."

"Smash it or not?" pressed Jasper, the Quartz preferring her objectives clear.

Peridot shook her head. "No, it could be unstable, and we still don't know what it actually is. We should secure the area and study it, but Lapis, be ready to drag it into the ocean if needed." She called up a rough holographic outline of the spaceship and began muttering to herself as various gem-language sigils flickered across it.

The blue gem gave a nod and got a distant look on her face. Off in the distant bay, an enormous trunk of seawater began to grow skyward.

"With me, squirt," and Jasper stepped into the sandy fog, Connie only a few paces behind.

"Access denied." 

It was said in a high-pitched monotone and come from somewhere within the cloud, a voice which was echoed again and again beyond easy counting from a multitude of directions. "Access d- // Access- // Acc- // -ied // Access den- // -ess denied // -s de- // -deni- // -cess denie- // -denied."

Holo-Pearls were translucent and faintly glowy, which was true of everything in the fog that wasn't directly in the shadow of the towering spacecraft, whirls of fine-grain sand making the air seem alive in the sunlight. Which was why the first holo-Pearl got within ten feet of them before Connie drew in a surprised (and gritty) inhalation of breath.

Alerted by Connie's flinch, Jasper pivoted about. The hard-light construct swung at the Quartz with the long haft of a rake, a blow which the warrior received on her upraised arm, entirely unphased.

"Private. Showing. In progress. Depar-" was as far as the artificial usher got before Jasper delivered a punch through its torso, the construct dissolving into nothing and the rake clattering to the ground.

Without consciously realizing it, Connie had drawn her saber, years of defense training moving her hand. A beat later three more holo-Pearls ghosted into view, armed with a table leg, a pair of gardening spades, and a golf club, respectively. She raised her saber in a defensive pose but all three veered around her, closing in on Jasper instead.

A few brief, violent seconds later, four ad hoc weapons landed in the dirt around the Quartz.

"Things okay in there, OJ?" Even though they weren't that far into the fog, Lapis was only a vague silhouette behind them.

"Minor-" Pivot, block, punch, and a ball-peen hammer dropped as a construct dissolved. "Minor resistance." Jasper stood tall in the haze, indomitable...

...until there was a snap, the sound of something heavy dropping, and a cable flew through the cloud almost too quick for Connie to see it. She ducked but she needn't have bothered, the trap flying two full inches over the top of Connie's head. The towering figure of Jasper, however, was clotheslined with a surprised grunt and pulled into the mist.

There was a distant bellow of Quartzine frustration and the sound of a thick cable being torn in half.

"Connie! Are you okay?!" // "That doesn't sound like minor resistance to me," said Peridot and Lapis simultaneously.

"F-Fine," stammered Connie, still crouched low and looking about uncertainly.

Connie started to creep forward in Jasper’s direction, the ghostly passage of a half-dozen or more holo-Pearls making the whole thing even _more_ surreal. Not a one so much as slowed upon spotting her.

More sounds of mechanisms and crashes in the distance indicated that Jasper was having a much more eventful time than she was. Something flew through the air and there was a deep thud. The ship's silhouette wobbled very slightly.

Connie was just considering heading back towards Lapis and Peridot when motion passed over her and she instinctively dropped low once more. Glancing about she realized it was something that had passed from the ship toward Jasper, its shadow briefly crossing Connie as it went.

In a deep voice of surprise, Connie heard, "You?" Then there was a loud 'wham' and Connie had to roll to the side as another shadow quickly resolved itself into Jasper on a low parabolic arc, the warrior hitting the ground and sliding right past where Connie had been standing.

"Au revoir, you jerk," answered the mist in a familiar voice.

Lapis or Peridot might have said something just then but it was hard for Connie to tell: in part because her hearing aids were starting to crackle, but mostly because Jasper gave another bellow, this time of rage.

The warrior’s silhouette came charging forward, indistinct but unmistakable. Ahead, there was an odd ripple in the fog as something rushed to meet her. It was large and moved like a gorilla, long arms pounding the ground as it rushed ahead. For a split second Connie saw the fog part, the figure moving through a corridor of clear before it passed and it collided into Jasper with an audible impact.

In a reversal of Jasper’s earlier knockback, the figure was sent flying, Connie wincing in sympathy at the sound of the blow that did it.

Before Jasper could advance, the fog appeared to thicken around the Quartz, eliciting another snarl of frustration from the warrior. Some number of holo-Pearls ghosted past, meeting a swift and savage end.

Lapis had apparently had enough of gawking at the obscuring cloud because she shouted, “That’s it! I’m giving the finger to the fog!”

There was a curious sound, like what a bug might hear seconds before meeting an onrushing truck windshield, and then Connie screamed in surprise as she was doused in a splash of water. It hadn't been worse than if Lapis had dumped a bucket out from a few feet up, but the ensuing wash apparently extended over the entirety of the launch site as well as a good portion of the barn and road leading up, the whole area turned into a damp expanse that sparkled in the sunlight.

Overhead was a colossal water hand, the middle finger missing entirely, apparently sacrificed for the occasion. Blinking at the sudden brightness, and wiping away the water that was dripping into her eyes, Connie realized that the sand had been washed entirely out of the air.

“Amethyst,” growled Jasper, the warrior finally having clear view of her opponent.

“Jasper,” snarled the purple Quartz, currently shapeshifted into a muscle-bound caricature of herself with enormously oversized forearms.

“Pearl!” cried Connie, the pale gem visible near the base of the spaceship, looking fatigued as her gem flashed white again and again, summoning replacement holo-Pearls.

“The book Pearl?!” exclaimed Lapis in abject surprise.

“Connie,” said Pearl, managing a weary grin for the girl before stealing a glance overhead. The traffic light still glowed yellow.

“A SPACESHIP?!” shrieked Peridot, her already nasal voice rising to new levels of shrill.

“Access Denied!” was the response from a monotone chorus probably two dozen strong.

For a split-second everyone was still. Then everything happened at once.

“Lapis! Drag that ship out to the ocean! And Connie! Get clear!” cried Peridot, the technician sounding on the edge of panic. A few quick, precise plasma bursts dissolved a pair of advancing holo-Pearls. Then a tractor beam-swung box bowled another pair aside for Lapis to finish off with her hammer.

The titanic hand overhead lowered with fearful slowness towards the ship.

Pearl’s gemstone flared a brilliant white and then everyone was standing in a transparent and brightly-lit version of the Chamber of Opulence from Connie’s story, the walls lined by holo-Pearls armed with white swords. The ship, the barn, even the distant bay were all still visible, but obscured by the suddenly conjured holographic set.

It made a very confusing scene, the eye having a hard time finding the right reference frame to focus on.

Jasper lashed out at a sword-armed holo-Pearl guard only for her arm to swing through unimpeded. A different holo-Pearl, this one armed with a tennis racket, struck ineffectually against the warrior before being sundered into dissolving fragments of light.

 _Holograms!_ realized Connie. Half the holo-Pearls were part of the holographic set, less solid than a spiderweb and utterly harmless, but they gave that much more camouflage for the hard-light versions.

The next time Connie looked over, Jasper had three holo-Pearls clinging to one thick, orange arm while her other arm was engaged in a contest of strength with Amethyst. The purple gem had her whip wrapped around Jasper's arm, neck, and torso, probably trying to tie up or pin the implacable warrior. When that hadn't proved sufficient, she'd joined Jasper in melee, trying to user her shapeshifted limbs for leverage to topple the Quartz. Jasper was holding her ground.

Another plasma barrage destroyed a holo-Pearl clinging to Jasper, and another one glanced Amethyst’s arm, an oversized bicep left smoking.

Connie started to head towards Peridot and Lapis when there was another flare of white, a cry of distress from Pearl as the gem nearly fell over, and then…

...dozens of holographic Connies. They looked fierce, each holding a sword in a different pose.

The plasma blasts into the melee stopped immediately, Peridot too fearful of accidentally striking the true Connie to even guess among the pale imitations.

The looming hand overhead, meanwhile, had frozen in place. “Dot, if I haul that hunk of junk out of there without a clear view, we’re going to be peeling someone off of that ship with a spatula,” said Lapis with an undertone of anxiousness.

“Gnyaaa!” Peridot gave a cry of frustration and then began summoning and banishing holographic displays with incredible speed as she did... something.

There was a flicker and then the holo-Connies vanished. Another flicker and the Chamber of Opulence began to disappear one section at a time. There was a note of resistance over by the base of the ship and Connie saw Pearl leaning heavily against the scaffolding, her gemstone flaring intermittently like a guttering candle. With a pained whimper, Pearl staggered to one knee and the holographic cover dissolved swiftly from there, the gem having lost the struggle against Peridot's countermeasure.

Amethyst was thrown back as Jasper burst free and delivered a hard blow to her imperfect challenger. Rather than rejoin the fray, Amethyst wheeled around, shifting into an owl flying over to land by Pearl's side. Shifting back, she helped the slight gem back to her feet, Pearl swaying as she rose.

Jasper had been simply ignoring the holo-Pearls for the latter part of the fight, a pair of them ineffectually tugging or beating on her while firmly informing her where the exit was, but with a dismissive strike sundered them both into scattered motes of light.

This was too much.

Connie had been mostly passive since they'd warped over, a stunned observer keeping her head down as events swirled around her. It was just that, any possible action she took, helping Pearl and Amethyst, helping the Crystal Gems, they all ended in people she cared deeply about feeling betrayed. She'd been hoping the dilemma would be resolved for her: Pearl and Amethyst would soar away or the cobbled-together ship would fail. _Anything_ so she didn't have to step up.

But this was too much.

Connie took in a deep breath and then, with every ounce of courage she could muster, shouted, "STOP!"

Five sets of eyes turned her way and the hand overhead paused.

With hands shaking slightly, Connie sheathed her saber, removed her sword belt, and dropped it to the ground. "I won't fight them and you shouldn't either. They just want to leave. Right, Pearl?"

Jasper's expression had shifted to a kind of neutral state of confusion, her eyes never leaving Connie's. "You know this Pearl?" she asked.

Connie nodded. "She was the gem trapped in my history book. Amethyst let her out after she took my backpack. I-" She swallowed, hesitating, but it wasn't like she could back down now. "I met her early last month. She and Amethyst were salvaging the Red Eye for parts."

Connie purposefully omitted Steven being there too. Eventually his parents would realize a spaceship had been built inside of and out of parts from the Universe family barn, after all, which was probably trouble enough without adding all this on top.

Lapis' eyes were wide. Peridot's eyes narrowed.

Pearl still looked overtaxed but she managed a formal-looking half-bow and said in her clear voice, "Connie is correct. Amethyst and I are departing the Earth and have no ill-will towards the Earth, the organic life of it, or the Crystal Gems specifically."

Amethyst opened her mouth to object but a pale hand against her gemstone convinced her to do nothing worse than growl slightly through clenched teeth.

Connie turned to Lapis, who seemed the least certain of her three caregivers. "This is like with the living island, Lapis. They aren't hurting anyone so we don't have to fight them."

Lapis looked a little lost, her eyes going from Connie to the rogue gems to Jasper and then to Peridot. "I mean, it is just a Pearl and an overcooked Quartz. Is anyone going to care back home?"

Jasper gave a noncommittal grunt, her poise ready for action and her gaze never leaving the three near the ship.

 _"Connie Quartz Maheswaran!"_ barked Peridot and Connie felt the instinctive fear known to children everywhere when their full name was said in _that_ tone of voice. "You are confused. And mistaken. And- And- grounded! Step away from there this instant!"

In that moment Connie found it harder to face Peridot than any gem monster, no matter how terrifying... but she stayed firm. Which was more than could be said of her voice. "N-No, ma'am. I-" A breath. "I won't."

Another deep breath while she tried to ignore the cries of alarm in Connie HQ and her preemptive mourning of all the TV privileges she had undoubtedly lost.

"Pearl was trapped in the gem chronicle, ma'am. She was trapped and cracked but aware. We were all wrong in thinking she was mindless or corrupted." And, because she couldn't help herself, she blathered out, "Which reminds me, we _have_ to make sure there aren't other embedded gems like her in a bubble." 

She took another breath as she pushed forward; if she lost her momentum she'd also lose her nerve. "And Amethyst's entire family was taken from her. It- It needed to happen because they were dangerous and they've hurt people but we did it the wrong way! We made her hate us and we're the good guys! She wasn't part of the war and Pearl wasn't either and now they just want to go. Isn't that fair?"

Peridot shook her head. She opened her mouth to say something, looking distressed. Then her teeth snapped shut and she looked about to snarl something through clenched teeth. Finally, eyes locked on Connie's, she said, "Jasper, grab her and poof them. We can't allow them to return to Homeworld."

The warrior took a step forward. While Pearl was barely standing and Amethyst was certainly the worse for wear, Jasper look unphased, perfect. They wouldn't stand a chance.

"Jasper! I command you to stop!" ordered Connie, trying to stand like the commanding picture of her mother she carried in her head.

The Quartz froze, her eyes locked on Connie's gemstone.

Then, slowly, her gaze rose to Connie's face. Her expression twisted mournfully and she shook her large head. "No. You're not Citrine. She's gone."

And when Jasper took her next step forward, that was the end of it.

Pearl and Amethyst had lost. They had done everything they could, put up a positively _heroic_ effort to defend their ship from the Crystal Gems, and they'd done nothing but lose. No one wearing a star had suffered worse than inconveniences.

Lapis could have dragged the ship, barn, and everything in a half-mile radius into the ocean and there would have been nothing Pearl and Amethyst could have done to stop it. Jasper could have marched in and single-handedly bulled through all of their defenses, torn the ship apart piece-by-piece, and if Pearl and Amethyst didn't flee, she could have brought them back in bubbles. Peridot could probably have melted the top half of the ship to slag with plasma fire without ever leaving the warp pad.

And Connie had played her only card and lost too, just one more obstacle brushed aside. Even if she used her force fields and her electricity, she wouldn't be able to poof Jasper, drive off Peridot, and keep Lapis' water hand at bay. She couldn't even do one of those things.

Connie turned to face Pearl and Amethyst to- she wasn't sure what, exactly. Apologize? That seemed too inadequate. Their entire world was crumbling before their eyes, at the hands of _Connie's family_. A sad look and a mouthed 'sorry' didn't come close to enough.

Amethyst was holding Pearl close with one hand, the other raised to her gemstone ready to withdraw a whip while she glared daggers at the advancing Jasper. Pearl, meanwhile, kept glancing between the Crystal Gems and the mocking, still-yellow traffic light above.

_It isn't fair. They haven't done anything wrong. They did everything they were supposed to and instead of going home, they're losing completely. This wasn't a fight, it was a bulldozer pushing over a sandcastle. Why won't anyone listen to me?! Why is everyone else. So. Wrong?!_

Righteous indignation surged through Connie. Outrage that the world could work this way collided with a bone-deep refusal to meekly accept it. The two exploded within the girl, a blast confined in too small a space and seeking a way out. Confidence in her own righteousness compelled her hands, balled into fists, to reach out. The will to see this wrong overturned, it demanded the means to act, the tool that would enable her to win.

Energy to give it form. Emotion to draw it forth. Will to give it purpose.

Connie held her sword.

For a moment Connie only glared in turn at Peridot, Jasper, and Lapis, brows furrowed. They stared at her, or a space perhaps a foot in front of her, each in open-mouthed shock. Even Jasper.

Then she realized there was a second crackling noise beyond the low-level one her hearing aids had been making: the steady sizzle of electricity as it arced up and down the length of her- On a deep, fundamental level, she knew what she was holding. It was clear to her senses in the same way she knew her hands from her feet. But it was still cause for surprise and amazement within Connie HQ.

For a moment her expression softened, becoming one of wide-eyed, awe-tinged wonder. She turned the sword slightly and saw a stylized lotus flower emblazoned on the flat of the blade, like the one Bismuth had embossed into the shield. _This must have been where the design came from_ , she thought distantly. Another corner of her mind spoke up, not so much a cogent thought as an emotion-laden directive: _DON’T THROW THE SWORD AWAY THIS TIME!_

Her grip on the hilt tightened fractionally.

“Con-con! You summoned your weapon!” enthused Lapis, breaking the silence. A beat later and the elation on her face dropped. “You summoned it… against us?”

If Connie would have hesitated, the weight in her hands was a tangible source of confidence for her: she was right and she could win. “We need to let them take their ship home.”

As if hearing her speak, the thrumming behind Connie grew louder, and with it, the crackling in her ears. A beat later and a green light was reflecting off the puddles on the ground.

“We need to get to the cockpit!” // “We can’t let them get to that cockpit!” shouted Pearl and Peridot at the same time, Connie straining to hear them over the ambient noise and interference.

The green gem took a hurried glance at Jasper --still transfixed by Connie’s gem and sword-- and Lapis was the picture of indecision. With a nasally growl of frustration, Peridot reconfigured her primary limb enhancer and took aim.

Connie’s eyes widened in recognition. Floating fingers fanned out, palm forward: Peridot was going to use her tractor beam! “Go! I’ll cover you!” shouted Connie as she ran toward where Amethyst and Pearl were scrambling to their feet. There was a crunch as Connie trampled something small that had been at her feet, but she paid it no mind.

A force field appeared a split-second before the green beam struck. For a second Peridot tried to move the field aside, but it wouldn’t budge. “JASPER!” she barked, voice thick with rising panic.

The Quartz blinked as if waking from a dream, then locked eyes on the fleeing pair past Connie. She lunged forward and was met by another field. Through the barrier her eyes met Connie’s, righteousness made manifest held tight in the girl's grip, and the perfect Quartz faltered briefly.

Amethyst brought one hand up to her gemstone, pulling a whip free. She then grabbed Pearl, pulling her tightly to her side, and lashed out with the weapon. The end wrapped around part of the scaffold two-thirds of the way up. “Hang on!” she barked and then swung/climbed swiftly upward, growing a third arm so she could hand-over-hand.

“No no no no no!” screamed Peridot. She aimed another tractor beam at the pair but a force field appeared five feet from her face, resisting the shot. “Lapis! Hit the ship! Now!”

“I can’t with Con-con right there! Big ol’ water fist isn’t exactly a precision weapon.”

As Jasper rounded the field and Connie assumed the defensive fighting stance Jasper herself had taught her, Amethyst and Pearl reached the top of the scaffolding and darted into the cockpit, an elongated purple arm slamming the hinged section of bluish glass shut.

The ship’s noise rose in both pitch and intensity.

Jasper slowly approached Connie. She said something that was swallowed up by the crackling in Connie’s ears. Peridot, meanwhile started to dart past the obstructing force field, limb enhancer configured into blaster mode. Without really knowing what she was doing, Connie pointed her sword and channeled the energy that was flowing freely into it and an arc of electricity flew and struck the side of the force field.

Peridot yelped and jumped back.

There was a _pulse_ and Connie’s hearing aids went nuts even as she staggered forward a step, off-balance. Then a noise Connie felt rather than heard made her teeth rattle in her mouth, a hot gale-force wind knocked everyone flat, and the area was lit up by a light that dwarfed the sun.

On instinct one hand had come free from what she was holding to help catch her fall, but Connie’s other hand kept a white-knuckle grip on her sword. It had been eleven months since she’d first summoned her weapon, so maybe in another eleven months she’d consider letting go of this one.

The wind and heat diminished. One of Connie’s hearing aids had cut out mid-roar and the other sounded like she was standing too close to one of Peedee’s deep fryers. Even then she was able to hear the cry of, “NOOOOOO!” that Peridot made. Her limb enhancer blossomed with a green sphere of plasma and then loosed it.

Connie scrambled to her feet and whirled around to see the green projectile strike the space-bound ship. One of the off-colored panels lining its side came free, the sheet of metal tumbling through the air and landing with an inaudible splash in the bay.

There was a blur of motion that Connie’s eyes found difficult to make sense of and then the ship was gone, the faster-than-light drive engaged.

Peridot was wild-eyed and frantic, hopping in a little circle as her tethered fingers tugged on her hair and her floating fingers cycled through offensive weapon configurations at random. “Lazuli! Chase them!” Her floating fingers became an arrow that was pointing skyward.

The blue gem crossed her arms. “And do what exactly? Pull them over for speeding?”

“No! Take water! Stop the craft! Quickly!” She had grabbed Lapis by the shoulders and was shouting in her face

There had been a handful of times when Connie had come close to serious injury during her eventful life with the gems. Peridot’s voice, what Connie could make of it with her single partially-working hearing aid, was the same level of panicked.

Lapis pushed Peridot back and the technician dropped to her knees. “Water sublimates in space, so when I caught them --if I caught them ‘cause that looked pretty dang fast-- I wouldn’t have anything except my wings left. You think I’m going to stop a spaceship with my fists or something? Sorry, Dot. They’re gone.”

Connie, angling her head to hear better, heard a moan of despair come from her green guardian.

Transferring her sword to her left hand, Connie walked over and placed the other on the gem’s shoulder. “Ma’am, it’s okay. They just went home.”

Peridot swept the arm off her shoulder and rose to her feet, face incensed. _“You!”_ she said, practically spitting the word. Connie took an involuntary step back. “Do you have _any idea_ what you’ve just enabled?! You have just been party to the doom of all of us as well as each and every organism inhabiting this planet.”

“Ma’am, I don’t think-”

“No, you clearly didn’t!” Peridot was pacing while she ranted, limb enhancers gesturing broadly as she went. “Homeworld can’t forget about Earth, too many Era-1 gems remain that were involved in the war, and Pink Diamond was shattered here. But they can ignore it. So they tell everyone it’s a failed colony and all the rebels were shattered. But what is going to happen when two gems arrive from that supposedly empty planet with first-hand accounts of a still-active rebel presence?”

Connie blinked and, after a beat, opened her mouth to reply but was cut off by Peridot. “What will happen is that Homeworld will be compelled to return to Earth, in force, and _sword or not_ -” she said, voice sharp as she gestured to Connie’s weapon, “-we will be overrun! I have seen the battleships, the legions of soldiers, the technological advances made since the conclusion of the previous war. We won’t last the opening barrage.”

Connie _hadn’t_ thought about that. When she’d faced down the others, she knew Pearl and Amethyst deserved to leave but that was as far as her train of thought had taken her. She glanced at Jasper and Lapis to gauge their reactions too.

Jasper looked somber but not particularly concerned. Lapis looked surprised and a little skeptical, adding, _“If_ they make it to Homeworld. That ship was a real clunker, Dot, and you did pull off a potshot before they warped.”

Peridot didn’t reply. She had slumped down like a stringless marionette. She was sitting in damp dirt that was lightly steaming from the heat of the launch, her head low and her ‘hands’ behind her neck. It looked like she was hyperventilating, which Connie wasn’t even aware gems could _do._

“Ma- Ma’am? Ma’am, I’m-” She was about to say ‘sorry’ but she caught herself. Was she? She imagined what would have happened if she hadn’t intervened. It wasn’t hard, envisioning a white and purple gem in bubbles, the ruins of the ship spread over the area.

She had done the right thing. It might not have been the smart thing, they would have to wait and see, but her confidence was- She squeezed her sword the way she might Steven’s hand if she was seeking assurance- her confidence was tangible.

“Am I grounded, ma’am?” she asked instead. Right or not, she would face the consequences of her actions.

Peridot had laid down, her spongy hair displacing the mud as she stared blankly at the contrail overhead. “No.”

Connie frowned in confusion tinged with concern. “So… I can go see Steven or…”

Peridot reached up and disabled her glasses, the constant stream of data and updates vanishing. “Do whatever you want,” she answered, voice tired. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”


	3. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After you finish reading this chapter, there is a related omake you might want to check out:  
> [Escape from Homeworld](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/33132777) by [br42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42), [BurdenKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurdenKing/pseuds/BurdenKing), and [MjStudioArts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MjStudioArts/pseuds/MjStudioArts) \- "Novaculite, a warp pad technician and veteran from Earth, needs to find a way to the one planet she knows Homeworld won’t follow her." **This fic is 100% canon.**

Steven rode his bike as quickly as he could. Well, maybe not that quick: he’d tried going full speed across town once and had nearly wound up tossing his cookies before he’d even reached the Big Donut. Still, he was pedaling pretty hard.

School had been cancelled after the power had stayed off for an hour. No one’s cell phones worked, but the school had a landline that he and Jeff and Peedee and everyone else used to call their parents. Actually, now that he thought about it, most of the homes in Beach City had landlines. Just another cool, weird thing about his new home.

After Dad had picked him up and taken him home, he’d tried calling the Beach House but got a really weird busy signal, like if it had been recorded with Sour Cream’s theremin. The phone Miss Peridot had built probably wasn’t working either.

So he was pedaling across town, his shiny red scrunchy working extra hard to keep his hair from slipping free. He didn’t know what had caused the power outage but he was certain Connie would know something about it. Anytime something weird happened in town, it was related to gem stuff.

Okay, sometimes Onion, but usually gem stuff.

The Big Donut had the door propped open. Steven had dismounted and was walking by, but he made a point to wave when he noticed Sadie and Lars sitting outside sharing a pint of ice cream.

Lars rolled his eyes but Sadie waved back and said, “Hey Steven. Let Connie and those gem ladies know the frozen stuff is ninety percent off.”

“Will do, Sadie, my lady!” he answered, giving another wave to the pair.

Just one more reason why he had to hurry and see Connie.

* * *

Like the Big Donut, the door to the Beach House was propped open to allow the ocean breeze to help make up for the lack of AC. Steven stepped in and saw Lapis pacing the living room. Miss Jasper was busy in the kitchen. There was a bit of smoke in the air so maybe she was cooking? He didn’t see miss Peridot but Connie did say she’d been in her room a lot after the shapeshifting testing.

No sign of Connie. Maybe she was in the bathroom or helping miss Peridot.

“Hey guys! I guess the power is out here too. Actually Sadie wanted me to say that the ice cream and popsicles and stuff over at the Big Donut are super cheap right now with the freezers off. How are...”

He trailed off. Miss Jasper was ignoring him, which wasn’t too unusual, but Lapis not reacting to cheap ice cream was _wrong_. Like, '1 + 1 = tunafish' wrong.

“Did I miss something?” he asked, feeling some worried butterflies in his tummy.

Just then the warp pad lit up and Connie stepped off. Her hair was poofy and it had sparks jumping around in it and _that was a really cool sword!_ She was looking at something in her not-sword hand. “I found what was left of my power sink. I think it overloaded or something and then got stepped on so-”

She noticed him and went quiet.

An arc of electricity ran between her sword and the phone, which was actually what had been smoking.

Lapis gave a slow shake of her head. “Yeah, you kind of missed a lot, Steven.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooooo! We finally made it!
> 
> I can't speak for other authors, but for me there are certain scenes in the story I help create that burn bright within my brain, beacons that I can see clearly and have been guiding the story towards bit-by-bit since the beginning. And this was one of the brightest! So it is with profound enthusiasm and relief for MJ, BurdenKing, and me that we reach this point! Now I just need to reach the other six or so and we can wrap this little project up...
> 
> We have always strived to make Connie not be girl!Steven and Citrine not be yellow!Rose, and one of those distinctions emerges from the emotional underpinning for their powers. In the show, Steven's powers are fueled by empathy and an urge to protect. CS!Connie's comes from confidence and an urge to right wrongs (it's actually aggression, but that's the form it takes for Connie). Connie didn't quite have all the needed ingredients to summon her sword with Pearl in Ep24, but here... Also, kudos to FlameWear for being the first person in the Discord I was aware of to guess this turn of events.
> 
> ALSO I am THRILLED to announce the completion of a very long-term project from another astonishingly talented and hard-working person: **the audiobook reading of Episode 1** of Connie Swap by [merms](https://thelittlemerms.tumblr.com/)! This astounding gal read, recorded, and mixed the entirety of Episode 1, even going in and **adding sound effects and background music!** Staying quiet about Connie Swap spoilers is hard, but keeping a lid on this while it's been in-progress has been 10 times harder!
> 
> The audio tracks have been uploaded to SoundCloud and been embedded in the chapters of Episode 1 so that people can listen and read along if they're so inclined. However, if you want to jump to the audio directly, you can do that below:  
> \- >[Episode 1, Chapter 1](https://soundcloud.com/officialconnieswapcrew/connie-swap-episode-1-chapter-1-reading)  
> \- - - >[Episode 1, Chapter 2](https://soundcloud.com/officialconnieswapcrew/connie-swap-episode-1-chapter-2-reading)  
> \- - - - - >[Episode 1, Chapter 3](https://soundcloud.com/officialconnieswapcrew/connie-swap-episode-1-chapter-3-reading)
> 
> * * *
> 
> MJ and BurdenKing really outdid themselves on the art and I can't thank them enough for being such wonderful and talented co-creators. And on the subject of their outstanding art, I have a bunch of additional art extras to present you all with!
> 
> For starters, here's the internal model for Citrine's/Connie's sword, a model we've had since February of 2017, and it's great to finally be able to share it with y'all!  
> 
> 
> Secondly, Connie's sword summoning pose was an homage to a wonderful bit of fan art by the skilled artist [Anawinkaro](https://anawinkaro.tumblr.com/post/173584488348/electric-connie-another-connie-swap-au-drawing-i). You can find more of Anawinkaro's art on their Tumblr [here](https://anawinkaro.tumblr.com/) and their Deviant Art page [here](https://anawinkaro.deviantart.com/).  
> 
> 
> Furthermore, here's a mid-process drawing of Connie absent her glow and electrical effects:  
> 
> 
> And lastly, here's an alternate pose for Amethyst and Pearl  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> With the end of _Space Race_ we've reached the conclusion of Season 1 of Connie Swap and we're going to have an 'off' week for the main fic, though I'll certainly be posting some omake content next Wednesday. Then tune in Wedneday, September 19th, for the start of **Episode 27: Be Wherever You Aren't**
>
>>   
>  Home is stressful right now and there's precious little to do in town since the power is still out, so it seems like a really good time to be somewhere else... Like, say, a remote, paradisiacal island with Steven! And Sadie! And... Lars?!
> 
>   
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official Omake collection, drop us a comment and we'll get in touch.
> 
> Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. [Come check it out.](https://discord.gg/RQMDdhr)
> 
> We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the [Connie Swap Tumblr](http://connieswap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Keeping track of all the updates to Connie Swap can get a little difficult, can't it? It doesn't have to be! If you go to the [Connie Swap Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/630527) page and click the " **Subscribe** " button then you will receive an email alert every time a new episode is posted or a new chapter is added to _ANY_ fic in Connie Swap.
> 
> One button. All the updates.


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